When I told people I was going to Burning Man, reactions fell into 3 distinct buckets – It was either “Burning what?”, “Awesome!!” or “Isn’t that just a bunch of stoned hippies having an orgy in the desert?” Truth be told, I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect either, but surely that is what travel is all about? Exploring the unknown, testing boundaries and being open to new ideas and experiences…?
The idea to end my trip there initially came from Adrian who I’d met in Ecuador. He was going and was able to set me up with access to a ticket, a tent, bedding, water, Aussie shiraz, beers, a dust mask and some fancy dress outfits…. Now how could I say no to an offer like that? I also couldn’t help but feel that the fact that the last month of my trip was totally unplanned, and that my flight home (which had been picked completely at random) just so happened to depart from San Francisco the night after the festival ended, was the universe’s way of trying to tell me something. And far be it from me to question the universe!
The Man
So what exactly is Burning Man? I think the most accurate answer to that question, would be that there is not actually a way of accurately answering that question. But since that answer would fit more within the realms of a Dr Suess book than the context of this blog, I’ll have a crack at coming up with something more descriptive. Essentially it’s a week-long festival in the Nevada desert, with no centrally organised line-up of musicians or activities beyond the fact that there’ll be a (wooden) man there and he’ll be burnt at the end of the week. Oh and a temple that will get burnt the day after. Sounds amazing doesn’t it? Well the amazing part is, that what there is to do at the festival, depends entirely on the festival goers themselves. And what they come up with is absolutely mind-blowing. There are spectacular art installations and art cars, all kinds of bars, food outlets, DJs, live bands, workshops and interactive structures for you to climb up, swing on, slide down, jump about, skate along and generally marvel at… to name just a few. In fact there is so much to see and do there, that anyone susceptible to FOMO might just be sent over the edge by it. An entire city is built, then enjoyed for a week, before being burnt to the ground or completely dismantled such that no trace is left behind. This city is built by the community and essentially functions on the principals of gifting, self-expression, and radical self-reliance. The only things that can be purchased are ice and coffee… beyond that there is no currency. Everything is “free”. Quite a radical concept for someone who works in banking… but it’s not like I’ve exactly been working lately anyway.
Sunrise over the beautiful Embrace sculpture… just hours before it burned
A roof of fire – enough to keep people entertained for hours…
An awesome band we stumbled across on one of our grilled cheese missions – a collaboration of over 100 brilliant musicians doing all sorts of funky covers
So what kind of people go to this quirky festival in a harsh desert environment that is doing its utmost to kill you on every turn, where you have to pay for a ticket to then provide everything yourself? Yes, there’s definitely some hippies there. And more naked people strolling the streets than you’d find in a nudist colony. But it’s also probably the biggest gathering of highly intelligent, insanely creative and genuinely loving people in the one spot that I’ve ever come across. And yes of course there’s some drugs there, but there’s drugs everywhere in the world. And it’s not like you actually have to take any to have a mind altering experience here.
So what did I provide to the festival? I chose to camp with the Costco Soulmate Trading Outlet (CSTO). Adrian had been camping with them for years and it certainly sounded like a fun group to be a part of. There were also the added advantages of it being a super well organised camp with a great communal meal system and luxurious facilities (by desert camping standards anyway). As the name suggests, what we provided to the playa, was soulmates. Pundits would come in (with a member of the opposite sex to trade), and sit at our lounge or drink in our bar whilst they filled out a 2 page questionnaire about themselves. After that, they’d be interviewed by a staff member, some proprietary coding would be expertly applied to assist the matching algorithms, and they would be issued with a membership card and asked to return the next day. Upon their return they would receive the application form of the soul-mate they’d been matched with by our supercomputers – and it was then up to them to locate this person (with the help of the camp directions and descriptions provided). Chances are they may never even find them – but they’d sure meet a lot of people and have fun trying! And remaining true to the Costco spirit, a different person would be given their form, so someone else is looking for them at the same time – and thus you actually get 2 soulmates for the price of one – to think some people spend a lifetime just searching for one!
Once I’d been trained up, I did a couple of shifts of interviewing and 1 behind the bar. For the most part, the interviews were fascinating. It’s astonishing just how much some people will open up to a complete stranger who is prepared to just listen to them talk about themselves… there are sometimes tears, often some laughs, smart answers, deep answers and breakthrough moments. We offered soulmates, but it seemed many got a bonus therapy session thrown in – by a totally unqualified professional of course. The bar work was also fun as our offering was exactly my specialty – pour a whole lot of random spirits and mixers in a blender with ice and hope for the best! I’ve always said measurements and recipes are for chumps.
So my days generally consisted of spending the mornings waking up slowly/avoiding too much heat/recovering from the previous evening (with the odd bike ride thrown in here and there), then working a shift in the afternoon, then going on random adventures. The random adventures were my favourite. Age, Rico and I would just jump on the bikes and take turns “navigating” to the next destination. Usually it would be a bar of some sort, but we did also stop to appreciate some art, climb up questionable structures, watch games of dodgeball taking place, go “shopping” for clothing (and decorative spiced rum), have a dance, eat some poutine or grilled cheese sandwiches, listen to music, play on the swings… anything that took our fancy really. For someone who loves random adventures and mucking around like a child, I was in heaven. All the bright blinky lights once the night fell were also a sight to be seen. I’d been to Vegas for the first time earlier on my trip, and been wowed by all the very bright excess there, but this seriously rivalled it. I think it was the contrast of the incredible brightness and activity amidst the nothingness that extended beyond the trash fence that did it. Extraordinarily eerie really.
Age, Rico and I – on one of our many bar crawls
Blinky lights galore
Fellow camp-mates Jefe and FNG battling it out in the Thunderdome (because why wouldn’t you want the crap beaten out of you on your birthday?)
Doing a spot of “shopping” – much more fun when everything is FREE
The burning of the man himself is also quite a spectacle. I’ve always found watching a fire burn cathartic (provided nothing and no-one is at risk or course), and this certainly was one big fire. They even had fireworks coming off him. He’s absolutely huge (I can only assume it’s something that gets bigger and bigger each year) so the time taken for him to properly burn was enough to put most of my group to sleep… but we of course had some spotters who stayed awake to alert us to wake up in time for the good bits. Once he was down we made our way back home past the burning debris – and almost got into quite an altercation with Satan who was blocking my path over the log. I don’t care who you’re dressed up as, to lean back on top of a girl who is at least 40kgs lighter than you is not cool. I gave him a shove (to very limited effect) and a verbal spray and was luckily able to be dragged up around the side of him – because had that gone on much longer, I daresay it would have gotten rather ugly. There are always dickheads in life, but I think what is more amazing about this particular experience, is that he was the only one I’d encountered in the whole week. And when you consider you’ve got 70,000 braving it out in the desert, I think those are actually pretty good odds.
Burning Man
The day after the burn was mostly spent working on the giant exodus task. Taking down shade structures, yanking out rebar, having tent folding competitions, eating copious amounts of excess snack supplies, dismantling the kitchen and coiling cords (with my newly learnt under over technique – thanks Rico). There was lots to be done, but many hands make light work, and Bunj’s continual delivery of Gatorade slushies certainly helped the cause! That evening we had a bbq dinner and were sitting around discussing heading out to the temple burn, when all of a sudden we saw the flames. Was that the temple? Was it meant to be burning already? Bugger! We clambered up on top of our shipping container and watched it burn in the distance. We were lucky we had the container height, but it was a bit of a shame to have not been closer as the temple is such a special place for so many people. A beautiful structure in itself, I found it particularly powerful for the fact that it had no specific religious affiliation – it was there equally for everyone to experience and was filled with messages to loved ones and the ashes of loved ones who have passed. A very meaningful burn for so many. Of course the advantage of “missing” the burn was that we were then able to waste no time in retiring to our couches to enjoy a very relaxing final evening around our burn barrel sipping red wine and eating chocolate. Super civilised – well except for the randoms using rebar to heat up old grilled cheese sandwiches in our fire – I’d almost forgotten for a second that we were at burning man…
The beautiful temple
Inside the temple
So to attempt to sum it up, the week really was a fantastic mini adventure to “end” my larger adventure. I have a disproportionately low number of photos as I think I was too busy processing it in my own head to think to get the camera out half the time, but luckily there were others in camp who did a much better job of this than me, and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more of their photos! At times the heat, the dust, the lack of sleep and the fact that my hair had pretty much become dreadlocks was challenging, but I think you need challenges in life to make you appreciate the good bits more. Among the good bits of course, I met some amazing people, saw some fascinating things, and got a lot of good hugs…. And when I return to work tomorrow to play with very big numbers on very big spreadsheets, who knows… perhaps I might just float the gifting economy concept there…
Musings of a Suerte Aussie Chica 